“I have to get my son to bed,” Noelle said. “I’ll speak with you tomorrow.”
“Noelle.” Christian spoke her name softly, halting her. “I meant what I said earlier. I really do miss you. I’d like for us to be friends again.”
If he’d tried to cajole her regarding Marc, she might have softened toward him. Christian had a right to his son, whether she liked it or not, and his determination to have a relationship with Marc would eventually soothe her ferocious mama bear instincts. But the instant he tried to appeal to what had once been between them, all sympathy for him fled.
“I have a life filled with family, friends and purpose that I love. There’s no room for you in it.” She resumed walking toward the house without a backward glance. “Good night, Christian.”
She didn’t collapse after shutting the front door behind her, although she leaned back against the wood panel and breathed heavily for a few minutes until her heartbeat slowed. Had she really just faced down Christian and gotten the last word in? If her stomach wasn’t pitching and rolling in reaction, she might have thrown a fist into the air.
Instead, Noelle headed upstairs. With each slow, deliberate step she regained the poise she’d learned in the stressful world of high fashion. The last thing she wanted was to upset her son and give him a reason to distrust Christian. Despite her measured pace, when she got to Marc’s room, she still hadn’t figured out a good way to explain the unexpected arrival of his father, a man she’d never talked about.
No surprise that Marc was jumping on his bed. On a regular day his small body contained enough energy to power a small village. After tonight’s drama, he was a supernova.
“Mama. Mama. Mama.”
“You know better than to jump on the bed,” she scolded, stifling a heartfelt sigh. At least her mother had been able to get Marc into his pajamas. “Did you brush your teeth?” When her son showed no indication of answering her question, she glanced at her mother, who nodded. With deliberate firmness Noelle urged her son beneath the covers.
“Did you make the bad man go away?”
Time to correct her first mistake of the evening: letting Marc become aware of the tension between her and Christian.
“That wasn’t a bad man, Marc. He was your prince.”
Aversion twisted her son’s features, amusing Noelle as she imagined the hit to Christian’s ego at being so disparaged by one of his subjects.
“Don’t like him.”
Noelle wasn’t feeling all that charitable toward Christian at the moment, either. She scooted her son into the middle of the double bed and seated herself beside him. Drawing in a breath, she braced herself to tell Marc that Christian was his father and then hesitated.
She couldn’t bring herself to drop this bomb on her son until she figured out if having Christian in his life would benefit him. “Prince Christian would like to be your friend.”
His little face screwed up in suspicion. “Does he like dinosaurs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can he play football?”
“I’m not sure.” Noelle suspected Marc had a list of activities he wanted to know about and smoothly redirected the conversation. “You’ll have to ask him what he likes to do when you see him next.”
“Will he get me a Komodo dragon?”
In addition to being obsessed with dinosaurs, Marc had a fascination with lizards and had received a twenty-gallon tank and a seven-inch leopard gecko from her dear friend Geoff for his fourth birthday. Since then, Marc had been lobbying for a bearded dragon, which would be twice the size of his current pet and require double the space.
“You know very well that a Komodo dragon is not a pet. They are seven feet long.”
“But he could keep it at the palace, and I could visit it.”
As wild a notion as this was, Noelle wouldn’t put it past Christian to buy his son’s love with a new pet. She would have to warn Christian against such a purchase. The last thing she needed was a houseful of tanks containing lizards.
“That’s not going to happen.” She steered the conversation back on track. “Prince Christian might come to visit in the near future and if you have anything you want to know about that, I want you to ask me.” She brushed a lock of hair off Marc’s forehead and stared into his gold eyes. “Okay?”
The way her son was looking at her, Noelle suspected she’d bungled the conversation, but to her surprise she wasn’t barraged by questions.
“Okay.”
“Good. What do you want me to read tonight?”
Unsurprisingly he picked up a book on dinosaurs. Marc enjoyed looking at the pictures as she read the descriptions. Noelle knew he had the entire volume memorized. The cover was worn, and a few of the pages had minor tears. Her active son was hard on most things, and this book was one of his favorites.
It took half an hour to get through the book. Marc had forgotten all about Christian’s visit by the time Noelle reached the last page. To her relief he settled down without a fight, his head on the pillow. A glance at the clock told her it was not long past his normal bedtime, and she congratulated herself on her minor victory.
Downstairs, her mother had opened a bottle of her favorite Gavi, a crisp Italian white with delicate notes of apples and honey. She handed Noelle a glass without asking if she wanted any.
“I thought you might be in the mood to celebrate,” Mara said, eyeing her daughter over the rim of her glass.
Resentment burned at her mother’s passive-aggressive remark. “Because Christian discovered I’ve been hiding his son all these years?” She snorted. “For the thousandth time, I’m not in love with him.”
Mara didn’t argue. “What are his intentions toward Marc?”
“He wants to get to know him.”
“And that’s all?”
“Of course. What else could there be?” Noelle had gone outside and shut the door before her conversation with Christian had gone too far, and knew her mother hadn’t overheard anything. Still, she experienced a flash of despair as she recalled how Christian had raised the notion of legitimizing Marc by marrying her.
“The kingdom needs an heir. Now that both Prince Gabriel and Prince Nicolas are married, the media are obsessively speculating who your Prince Christian will choose to marry. The pressure is all on him to produce a son.”
“He’s not my Prince Christian,” Noelle muttered, letting her irritation show.
